End of Unit 1 Assessment:
Analyzing an Excerpt from Barack Obama’s Back-to-School Speech
I can determine the main idea of an informational text based on details in the text. (RI.6.2)
I can analyze how a particular sentence, paragraph, chapter, or section fits in and contributes to the development of ideas in a text. (RI.6.5)
Supporting Learning Targets / Ongoing Assessment
• I can read an excerpt of President Obama’s speech closely in order to answer text-dependent questions.
• I can make a claim using details from an excerpt of President Obama’s speech. / • End of Unit 1 Assessment: Analyzing President Obama’s 2009 Back-to-School Speech
Agenda / Teaching Notes
1. Opening
A. Unpacking Learning Targets (2 minutes)
2. Work Time
A. Reading and Listening to an Excerpt from President Obama’s Speech (5 minutes)
B. End of Unit Assessment (35 minutes)
3. Closing and Assessment
A. Mix and Mingle: What Does President Obama Believe Students Need to Do to Be Successful? (3 minutes)
4. Homework:
A. Read Chapter 13 of Bud, Not Buddy. / • In this end of unit assessment, students read an excerpt from President Barack Obama’s Back-to-School Speech from 2009. They independently apply the same reading strategies and skills they practiced in reading and analyzing the Steve Jobs speech. The assessment begins with students reading along as they hear this excerpt delivered by President Obama. Students then answer a series of short-response questions and complete a Forming Evidence-Based Claims graphic organizer in response to a focusing question.
• In advance: Read the excerpt of the speech (see supporting materials). Prepare technology to play the video of President Obama’s Back to School Speech from times 15:44-18:59. If the equipment is unavailable, you can read the excerpt aloud to your class. This video may be accessed at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/video/President-Obamas-Message-for-Americas-Students
• Review Mix and Mingle strategy (Appendix)
• Post: Learning targets, the focusing question for the Forming Evidence-Based Claims graphic organizer (see supporting materials).
• Assess student responses on the End of Unit Assessment using the Grade 6 2-Point Rubric: Short Response (from http://www.engageny.org/sites/default/files/resource/attachments/grade-6-ela-guide_0.pdf)
Lesson Vocabulary / Materials
excerpt / • End of Unit 1 Assessment: Analyzing President Obama’s 2009 Back-to-School Speech (one per student)
• Forming Evidence-Based Claims: Focusing Question for President Obama’s Back-to-School Speech (one per student and one for display)
• Video of President Obama’s 2009 Back-to-School speech, found at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/video/President-Obamas-Message-for-Americas-Students
• Technology to display video of President Obama’s Back to School Speech
• End of Unit 1 Assessment: Analyzing President Obama’s 2009 Back-to-School Speech (Answers for Teacher Reference)
• Document camera
Opening / Meeting Students’ Needs
A. Unpacking Learning Targets (2 minutes)
• Invite students to read along as you read aloud today’s learning targets:
* “I can read an excerpt of President Obama’s speech closely in order to answer text-
dependent questions.”
* “I can make a claim using details from an excerpt of President Obama’s speech.”
• Tell students that today they will spend time listening to, reading, and writing about a speech delivered by President Barack Obama. They will be using the same reading skills and strategies they have been practicing with the Steve Jobs speech, but now they have the opportunity to show those skills independently. / • Learning targets are a research-based strategy that helps all students, especially challenged learners.
• Posting learning targets allows students to reference them throughout the lesson to check their understanding. They also provide a reminder to students and teachers about the intended learning behind a given lesson or activity.
• Discussing and clarifying the language of learning targets helps build academic vocabulary.
Work Time / Meeting Students’ Needs
A. Reading and Listening to an Excerpt from President Obama’s Speech (5 minutes)
• Distribute a copy of the End of Unit 1 Assessment: Analyzing President Obama’s 2009 Back-to-School Speech to each student. Tell them that, just like when reading the Steve Jobs speech, they will first listen to President Obama deliver this excerpt of his address while they read along. Give students the context of this address by saying: “Each fall, President Obama addresses the students of America by giving a back-to-school speech. In this speech, he outlines and elaborates on ideas he believes will help students be successful in school. Today we are going to watch just a part of the speech he gave America’s students in 2009, but this excerpt has themes and structure on its own.”
• Ask students to follow along with their copies of President Obama’s Back to School Speech as you start at 15:34 of the video of President Obama’s Back to School Speech without stopping. Play the video until the end. / • Listening to President Obama give the speech will improve student engagement in the text and give them a deeper understanding of the meaning through his intonation and the emphasis he places on words and phrases.
B. End of Unit 1 Assessment (35 minutes)
• Tell students they will have the next 35 minutes to work on their assessment. Point out that you have posted the Forming Evidence-Based Claims: Focusing Question for President Obama’s Back-to-School Speech for them to use when completing the Forming Evidence-Based Claims graphic organizer portion of the assessment. Tell students to copy this question at the top of the organizer. Remind students that the details from the text they choose should relate to this question. They then connect the details. Finally, they form a claim that answers the focusing question.
• Circulate and support students as they work. This will primarily mean helping student get “unstuck” on individual questions, or in choosing important details when making their claim.
• After 35 minutes, collect the assessments.
Closing and Assessment / Meeting Students’ Needs
A. Mix and Mingle: What Does President Obama Believe Students Need to Do to Be Successful? (3 minutes)
• Congratulate students on the perseverance and stamina it takes to sit and analyze a text. Tell them that you would like for them to now share some of their ideas from the assessment in order to hear a diversity of opinions about President Obama’s speech.
• Tell students that when you give them the signal, they will begin to quietly and slowly walk around the room. They will have 3 minutes to have a collaborative discussion, talking to as many people as they can, without running and being polite in passing one another.
• With the first person they encounter, they are sharing their own claim for the question: “What does President Obama believe students need to do to be successful?” When they get to the second person, they have to share the claim of the person they just talked to, saying: “(Student’s name) thinks that …” When they get to the third person, they share the second person’s idea, and so on until time is up.
• Circulate and listen to students’ conversations. Remind them that they are spreading each other’s ideas, not just their own, around the room. / • Use of strategies like Mix and Mingle allows for total participation of students. It encourages critical thinking, collaboration, and social construction of knowledge. It also helps students practice their speaking and listening skills.
Homework / Meeting Students’ Needs
A. Read Chapter 13 of Bud, Not Buddy. Add rule number 63 rule to your Tracking Bud’s Rules graphic organizer. Think about the meaning of Bud’s this rule. Think about whether or not you agree with Bud’s rule and why.
Created by Expeditionary Learning, on behalf of Public Consulting Group, Inc.
© Public Consulting Group, Inc., with a perpetual license granted to Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound, Inc. / NYS Common Core ELA Curriculum • G6:M2A:U1:L12 • June 2014 • 1
Grade 6: Module 2A: Unit 1: Lesson 2
Photograph for The World Of
Bud, Not Buddy chart
Created by Expeditionary Learning, on behalf of Public Consulting Group, Inc.
© Public Consulting Group, Inc., with a perpetual license granted to
Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound, Inc. / NYS Common Core ELA Curriculum • G6:M2A:U1:L1 • August 2013 • 1
Grade 6: Module 2A: Unit 1: Lesson 12
End of Unit 1 Assessment:
Analyzing President Obama’s 2009 Back To School Speech
Name:
Date:
Excerpt from:
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
IN A NATIONAL ADDRESS TO AMERICA’S SCHOOLCHILDREN
September 8, 2009
P1 No one’s born being good at all things. You become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. The same principle applies to your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right. You might have to read something a few times before you understand it. You definitely have to do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.
P2 Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength because it shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and that then allows you to learn something new. So find an adult that you trust—a parent, a grandparent or teacher, a coach or a counselor—and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals. And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you, don’t ever give up on yourself, because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.
P3 The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.
P4 It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and they founded this nation. Young people. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google and Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.
P5 So today, I want to ask all of you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in 20 or 50 or 100 years say about what all of you did for this country?
Excerpt from:
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
IN A NATIONAL ADDRESS TO AMERICA’S SCHOOLCHILDREN
September 8, 2009
P6 Now, your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books and the equipment and the computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part, too. So I expect all of you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you.
President Barack Obama. Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama: Back to School Event. Delivered in Arlington, Virginia. September 8, 2009. Public Domain.
1. In Paragraph 1, President Obama says: “You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song.” Why does he include these examples? How do they contribute to the meaning of that paragraph? Use evidence from the text.
2. In Paragraph 4, President Obama repeats the phrase “Students who sat where you sit …” Why does he include this phrase? How does it add to the meaning of this excerpt? Use evidence from the text.
3. What do you notice about the structure of Paragraph 5? How does it add to the meaning of this excerpt from the speech? Use evidence from the text.
Created by Expeditionary Learning, on behalf of Public Consulting Group, Inc.© Public Consulting Group, Inc., with a perpetual license granted to
Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound, Inc. / NYS Common Core ELA Curriculum • G6:M2A:U1:L12 • June 2014 • 9
Grade 6: Module 2A: Unit 1: Lesson 12
Sample Answers
(For Teacher Reference)
1. In Paragraph 1, President Obama says: “You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song.” Why does he include these examples? How do they contribute to the meaning of that paragraph? Use evidence from the text.
He includes those examples because students may have experience of those examples, which makes students want to listen to what he has to say. The examples contribute to the meaning of the paragraph by linking to academic work at school. He leads in to saying, “You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right,” which is what he really wants to talk to students about.
2. In Paragraph 4, President Obama repeats the phrase “Students who sat where you sit …” Why does he include this phrase? How does it add to the meaning of this excerpt? Use evidence from the text.
He includes it because it makes students realize that everyone, even really successful people and people who change the world, were students in school once. He uses the example of, “Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google and Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.” It adds to the meaning of the excerpt by leading in to talking about how every student has the potential to be something really important and to contribute something big to the world.
3. What do you notice about the structure of Paragraph 5? How does it add to the meaning of this excerpt from the speech? Use evidence from the text.
The structure of paragraph 5 is questions. They make students think about how they can one day become people who make a big difference in the world, he says, “What’s your contribution going to be?”